In which I have house envy
This entry was originally posted to the Blog A Go-Go on March 30, 2008.
Our last trip to England involved stately homes--LOTS of stately homes. (At least there were lots to hear my daughter tell it.) We visited Castle Howard and Harewood House which were grand and impressive and well worth the time and expense. But as beautiful as those homes are, they were a little terrifying. I stood in the main hall of Castle Howard and thought about the weight of responsibility that comes with owning such a place. Even provided with enough money and manpower to keep up with endless taxes and repairs, there must be a nearly paralyzing awareness that you are not the first to own this place, but you very well might be the last if you screw it up. Do the owners agonize over new wallpaper or flooring samples, worrying about how their choices will stand up for the next generation? I have been known to take six months to consider paint samples on a sheetrock wall. How much more daunting must it be to authorize someone to take a paintbrush to plaster that was troweled on when Charles II was king?
But for all its splendor, one house stood apart because it wasn't terrifying in the least. Sledmere House almost didn't make our itinerary. The house is only open for the summer season, but a quick e-mail to the house manager confirmed that they would be open for Easter weekend, the only opening before summer and the only weekend we would be in England. It seemed like kismet, and so I dutifully circled "Driffield" on the map and we set out from York. After Castle Howard and Harewood House, Sledmere seemed modest by comparison. Modest, but perfect. It is Georgian, with all the symmetry you would expect. The car park is mercifully tiny. (We hiked for AGES to get to Harewood, and Castle Howard required a jitney--or whatever the British equivalent is.)
Within minutes of parking we were inside Sledmere, welcomed warmly by the volunteers from the Lifeboat. They were fundraising that weekend, and the house was full of the most beautiful spring flower arrangements--something to do with the charity. I had the dim idea that the house was opened by the family with the proceeds going to support the Lifeboat, but I could be wrong about that. (The house is still owned by the Sykes family as it has been for centuries.) But aside from the delicious smell of flowers filling the house, there was music. Organ music. It was astonishing but a bit over the top, I thought, to blast a CD at the visitors. Until I realized the organ was tucked behind the staircase and there was an actual musician beavering away at it. It was, in a word, glorious, and yet the house only felt cozier for it.
We listened as we toured the downstairs rooms, admiring the art and the furniture, and as we peeked inside the drawing room, I realized why Sledmere felt so homey: there was a telephone on the desk. A modern telephone with multiple lines. There was a pile of magazines and correspondence. The sofa cushions were plumped, but clearly had been used recently. The feeling in the room was that the host had been expecting us and had quickly tidied up before we arrived--which is precisely what had happened, although I suspect the volunteers had been the ones doing the cushion-plumping. The rooms we were seeing were lived in.
And that made all the difference. Instead of a formal, forbidding museum, Sledmere is a beautiful, welcoming home, and as we made our way through the house, I scrutinized each room for traces of the family who lived there. (I've already admitted my tendencies to domestic voyeurism.) In one luxurious guest room, I noticed the faintest trace that the bedcover was rumpled. The docent in that room saw my glance and smiled. "This room is in use at present. There is a famous actor from London staying with the family and we've only just removed his cases. Of course I can't say who..." she trailed off. And, maddeningly enough, she didn't. It doesn't matter. Whoever he was, I was bitterly envious.
I consoled myself with a delicious cream tea in the tea room and bought an armful of books and goodies from the shop. (If I told you that the girls working in the tea room were, in spite of being rushed off their feet and almost out of everything, charming and utterly beautiful, you would accuse me of embellishment. Fine, but they were the prettiest girls I saw in Yorkshire, I promise.) And before I left, I bought a CD of the organ music recorded at Sledmere. I may not live in a Georgian manor house, but at least I can fill a vase with spring flowers and turn up the volume on the CD and be mistress of my own little domain.
Our last trip to England involved stately homes--LOTS of stately homes. (At least there were lots to hear my daughter tell it.) We visited Castle Howard and Harewood House which were grand and impressive and well worth the time and expense. But as beautiful as those homes are, they were a little terrifying. I stood in the main hall of Castle Howard and thought about the weight of responsibility that comes with owning such a place. Even provided with enough money and manpower to keep up with endless taxes and repairs, there must be a nearly paralyzing awareness that you are not the first to own this place, but you very well might be the last if you screw it up. Do the owners agonize over new wallpaper or flooring samples, worrying about how their choices will stand up for the next generation? I have been known to take six months to consider paint samples on a sheetrock wall. How much more daunting must it be to authorize someone to take a paintbrush to plaster that was troweled on when Charles II was king?
But for all its splendor, one house stood apart because it wasn't terrifying in the least. Sledmere House almost didn't make our itinerary. The house is only open for the summer season, but a quick e-mail to the house manager confirmed that they would be open for Easter weekend, the only opening before summer and the only weekend we would be in England. It seemed like kismet, and so I dutifully circled "Driffield" on the map and we set out from York. After Castle Howard and Harewood House, Sledmere seemed modest by comparison. Modest, but perfect. It is Georgian, with all the symmetry you would expect. The car park is mercifully tiny. (We hiked for AGES to get to Harewood, and Castle Howard required a jitney--or whatever the British equivalent is.)
Within minutes of parking we were inside Sledmere, welcomed warmly by the volunteers from the Lifeboat. They were fundraising that weekend, and the house was full of the most beautiful spring flower arrangements--something to do with the charity. I had the dim idea that the house was opened by the family with the proceeds going to support the Lifeboat, but I could be wrong about that. (The house is still owned by the Sykes family as it has been for centuries.) But aside from the delicious smell of flowers filling the house, there was music. Organ music. It was astonishing but a bit over the top, I thought, to blast a CD at the visitors. Until I realized the organ was tucked behind the staircase and there was an actual musician beavering away at it. It was, in a word, glorious, and yet the house only felt cozier for it.
We listened as we toured the downstairs rooms, admiring the art and the furniture, and as we peeked inside the drawing room, I realized why Sledmere felt so homey: there was a telephone on the desk. A modern telephone with multiple lines. There was a pile of magazines and correspondence. The sofa cushions were plumped, but clearly had been used recently. The feeling in the room was that the host had been expecting us and had quickly tidied up before we arrived--which is precisely what had happened, although I suspect the volunteers had been the ones doing the cushion-plumping. The rooms we were seeing were lived in.
And that made all the difference. Instead of a formal, forbidding museum, Sledmere is a beautiful, welcoming home, and as we made our way through the house, I scrutinized each room for traces of the family who lived there. (I've already admitted my tendencies to domestic voyeurism.) In one luxurious guest room, I noticed the faintest trace that the bedcover was rumpled. The docent in that room saw my glance and smiled. "This room is in use at present. There is a famous actor from London staying with the family and we've only just removed his cases. Of course I can't say who..." she trailed off. And, maddeningly enough, she didn't. It doesn't matter. Whoever he was, I was bitterly envious.
I consoled myself with a delicious cream tea in the tea room and bought an armful of books and goodies from the shop. (If I told you that the girls working in the tea room were, in spite of being rushed off their feet and almost out of everything, charming and utterly beautiful, you would accuse me of embellishment. Fine, but they were the prettiest girls I saw in Yorkshire, I promise.) And before I left, I bought a CD of the organ music recorded at Sledmere. I may not live in a Georgian manor house, but at least I can fill a vase with spring flowers and turn up the volume on the CD and be mistress of my own little domain.
Labels: domesticity, England, stately homes
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